


A Little Closer to the Edge

by cosmicbluebells



Series: The Familiarity of Exit Wounds [1]
Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-20 22:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30011547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicbluebells/pseuds/cosmicbluebells
Summary: Kaoru pushes his glasses up his nose and blinks, lashes fluttering. He leans closer to the screen of his laptop. The blue light reflects off his molten gold eyes, and the refined plane of his nose is bold, almost dignified despite the ever-present scowl on his face.It makes Kojiro want to throw up.Kaoru is a passable roommate, if not perfect. He leaves Kojiro a cup of tea every morning and makes fun of his bedhead and goes into his bedroom at dusk to watch the sunset. It’s nice, as far as roommates go. Or as nice as living with Kaoru goes.But Kojiro didn't think sharing an apartment would lead to…whatever this is.["we started living together then i realized you were really hot and now i'm kind of in love."]
Relationships: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom
Series: The Familiarity of Exit Wounds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2214420
Comments: 32
Kudos: 437
Collections: Sk8 fics!!!





	A Little Closer to the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> this was just supposed to be joe realizing he has a silly little crush on his best friend but it got kind of angsty (as per usual) so,,, i apologize in advance. 
> 
> (not beta-ed, but has been rewritten/heavily edited.)

Kojiro squints at the paper he’s supposed to be reading. His eyes skim over the same line for the fifth time. 

It’s something about the history of Italian cuisine and ancient cooking methods, which would fascinate him under normal circumstances, but today he can't even get past the introduction. Not least of all because his best friend is sitting next to him on the couch, hair tied in a messy braid and bare legs crossed.

Kaoru pushes his glasses up his nose and blinks, lashes fluttering. He leans closer to the screen of his laptop. The blue light reflects off his molten gold eyes, and the refined plane of his nose is bold, almost dignified despite the ever-present scowl on his face.

It makes Kojiro want to throw up.

“You look constipated.”

“Shut up,” Kojiro replies automatically, but his brain is going into overdrive at the sight of Kaoru’s skin: _oh god, his legs are really fucking_ —“I’m thinking,” he says instead.

“Oh?” Kaoru asks, arching an eyebrow. “That’s unprecedented. About what?”

“Homework,” he lies. He picks the paper back up again and the corner crinkles under his tight grip. “I have class tomorrow.”

Kaoru rolls his eyes. His lower lip juts out in what Kojiro knows is supposed to be an expression of disgust, even though somehow all he can focus on is the sharp, chiselled line of Kaoru’s jaw. 

“I’m serious,” he says indignantly. “This paper is interesting.” Or it would be if he could actually _pay attention_ to the words on the page.

“I’m sure it is,” Kaoru responds, testy. “What’s it about?” The curve of his mouth turns into a smirk, and god, Kojiro kind of wants to kiss it away.

“I—” he flounders, then throws his hands up. The paper crumples under the weight of a couch cushion when it lands on the ground. “I give up. I have no idea what I’m doing. Happy now?”

Kaoru narrows his eyes, He tosses his braid over his shoulder and a pink tendril floats closer, framing his face. “Not particularly.”

“What do you want from me?” Kojiro asks, gaze fixated on the wispy rose-coloured curl. “I have work to do and I’d like to get it done.”

Kaoru shrugs. “Nothing, honestly,” he answers calmly. “Go back to your—homework. I won’t distract you.”

 _You’re already distracting me_ , thinks Kojiro. He clenches his fist. “Thank you.”

They fall into an easy silence. Kojiro picks up the paper and runs his finger across it line by line, forming the words with his lips. He manages to read the first paragraph without his attention being ripped away by the long, pale slope of Kaoru’s neck, and he internally pats himself on the back while simultaneously wondering: _why him, why him?_

Kaoru makes an involuntary, frustrated sound in the back of his throat.

Kojiro looks up. There’s a deep wrinkle between his brows, and Kojiro’s fingers itch to smooth it away. “Something wrong?” 

“No,” Kaoru dismisses him, waving a hand. “Just…confused. Keep going.”

Kojiro leans back and looks back at the paper, but his gaze jumps between the gentle contour of Kaoru’s cheekbone and the words, and Kaoru ends up winning out.

He tosses the document back on the ground, throwing a hand over his eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Want ice-cream? There might be some leftover from last week,” Kaoru offers, standing up. He heads to the kitchen. Kojiro stares at the muscled outlines of his legs. A tattoo climbs up the outside of Kaoru’s knee, an ornate feather embellished with pale rainbow watercolours. The figure is deep indigo against his pale skin.

Kojiro shakes his head to get rid of the thoughts and sighs. “Yes please,” he calls. 

The stuffy humidity of the apartment is making it hard to focus, and even though the air conditioning blows steadily at his face, there’s little respite from the heat.

Kaoru returns with two mochi ice-cream, wrapped in plastic. He hands the mango one to Kojiro and unwraps his own, green tea and red bean. His fingers are graceful as he peels the plastic off.

Kojiro bites into his mochi and hums happily. The ice cream drips sticky down his fingers. Kaoru hands him a napkin, nose wrinkling.

“Wash your hands afterwards,” he says. Kaoru’s cheeks are pink from the heat and sweat shines on his forehead, and it shouldn’t be attractive but it _totally_ is. Kojiro’s heart is drumming faster than the sound of the air-conditioner whirring.

He slumps. “Of course I'll wash my hands. I’m literally in culinary school, idiot.”

“Just because you’re learning to cook doesn’t mean your hygiene isn’t still terrible,” Kaoru shoots back. “Take the fucking napkin, moron.”

Kojiro flicks him. “Fine.”

Kaoru scoots further away and uses his teeth to remove the layer of mochi from the ice cream, chewing methodically. His lips are stained dark from the red bean, glossy and entirely kissable.

Kojiro swallows dryly, finishing his mochi off with a last bite and tossing the wrapper in the garbage can. He washes his hands quickly and spins on his heel. He freezes.

The light filtering in from the window sets Kaoru awash in blanched sunshine—a radiant shade of yellow shot through with rays of white—silhouetted crisply against the backdrop of sky-blue curtains. 

His hair dips over his shoulder, making his ears visible. His helix piercing gleams silver in the afternoon daylight.

“I’m gonna—go,” Kojiro croaks. He points at the door. “I forgot about…I have to ask my professor a question,” he says, floundering.

Kaoru tilts his head and tucks a lock of hair behind his ear, amber eyes filled with puzzlement. “Why can’t you ask in class tomorrow—”

“Gotta go!” Kojiro yelps. “See you for dinner. I’ll get takeout.”

He fumbles with his keys and bolts out the door, stepping on his skateboard. He skates all the way to the nearby cafe with his jacket unbuttoned and pulse racing.

━━━━━━

There were a few things going through Kojiro’s mind when he asked Kaoru if they could rent an apartment together.

The first was kindness, mostly—he’d seen the way Kaoru’s shoulders seized up and his breath quickened almost imperceptibly at the thought of having to share an apartment with someone he didn’t know, and Kojiro figured he would be a better option than a stranger, even if Kaoru didn’t like him much either.

The second, selfishness. Kojiro needed somewhere to stay during culinary school anyway, especially since he would never be able to drive from his parents’ house to the school. 

(It wasn’t that he _chose_ not to get his driver’s license—it just slipped his mind when he was sixteen, and ever since then it hasn’t felt like the right time. Hiroko has never stopped making fun of him for it.)

Third: convenience. They’re both good at different housekeeping tasks: Kojiro can take care of the meals, Kaoru (begrudgingly) does the dishes and the bills every month, while they split the cleaning and laundry.

So: Kojiro was thinking of a lot of things when he decided to take the leap and offer to share a place with Kaoru.

The idea that his minuscule attraction to his high school friend would grow into a massive crush was not one of those things, but it happened anyway.

He isn’t _angry_ about it, per se, since it had been an inevitability since the start, creeping up on him and waiting for him to realize. He’s more panicked than anything, panicked that Kaoru will find out and hate him for it, and then he’ll lose his best friend _and_ the apartment they share, which Kaoru technically has the rights to. The deposit is filed under his name.

It’s less a matter of _unconditional love_ and more ‘love with conditions that are already fulfilled merely by his existence,’ an exchange of giving and taking where the only thing Kojiro asks for in return is for Kaoru to stay.

Sakurayashiki Kaoru is beautiful in the sort of way that makes it hard not to stare, beautiful in the sort of way that makes it even harder not to blurt out: _I’m in love with you._ He is beautiful and brilliant and all the things that Kojiro is not.

Kojiro hopes for it anyhow.

Because _yes_ , he wants the taste of Kaoru’s lips sweet against his own and the bruising grip of Kaoru’s fingers on his hips, but he wants so many other things, too—he wants the sleepy, unguarded smiles that Kaoru sends him in the morning and the way his mouth drops open slightly when he naps on the couch during lazy afternoons. He wants mochi ice-cream on weekends and cups of microwave ramen at two in the morning and the glint in Kaoru’s eye after a biting insult, wants to hear the bedside lamp flick on after a particularly bad dream and wants to be the one to calm Kaoru’s frenzied breaths with a comforting touch. Kojiro _wants_ so badly it aches. 

It would be easier if they weren’t roommates. At least then, Kojiro could convince himself he doesn’t know Kaoru well enough, or that he wouldn't be as good of a boyfriend as he was a friend.

But they _live_ together. Kojiro knows Kaoru inside and out, knows which lullabies soothe him most, knows how his hair gets mussed from the way he buries his head in his pillow, knows that he has a scar on his nose from wearing his glasses, that he’s just as beautiful when he’s drunk or angry or both, that he can always be found at the west-facing window of Kojiro's bedroom in the evenings because there's a view of the sunset.

Knowing these things just makes Kojiro want Kaoru even more.

He has no idea what to do about it. So he does nothing.

He’s gotten into the habit of blowing off Kaoru’s subtle invitations to study together, ones he’d accepted gratefully before, and he’s become wary of spending too long with Kaoru unless the situation calls for it, because at least when they’re not in the same room, he can pretend Kaoru isn’t half as pretty as he really is. And that he doesn’t want to kiss him half as much as he really does.

━━━━━━

Hiroko glances at him when the cafe door opens. “What now,” she deadpans, but there’s a small smile on her lips.

Kojiro groans and flops down into a chair close to the counter. “So many things.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“It absolutely can,” Kojiro counters, slumping further down. “I want to melt into the floor.”

Hiroko props her elbows up and looks at him. She twirls a Sharpie between her fingers and uncaps it to doodle on an extra coffee cup. “Tell me what happened, then.”

He tells her everything. At least, everything that’s happened since the last time he came here last week, which just consists of the same whining with a dash of vulnerability for good measure.

“So you told him you had to talk to your professor. And left him alone.”

“It was a shitty excuse, okay?” he groans. "No need to rub it in.”

His dilemma sounds even more ridiculous when put into words, and he can tell from the look on her face that she’s about to say something he doesn’t want to hear.

“Kojiro,” she starts. “I know we’ve talked about this, but why don’t you just—tell him? You can’t keep going like this.” It’s the truth, but he winces regardless.

“I _know_ I can’t,” he answers.

“So what’s stopping you?” Her voice is gentle. It leaves a sour taste in Kojiro’s mouth, and he licks his lips to get rid of the dryness. He pauses and thinks for a minute. 

A customer comes up to the counter; Hiroko rings them up, handing them a scone and waving goodbye. She looks back at Kojiro.

“I…” he trails off. “I’m less scared that he’ll reject me. I could get over that eventually, I think. But what if we get together and he decides he doesn’t like me afterwards, or that I’m not a good boyfriend? I couldn’t live with that,” he whispers, voice barely audible over the clamour of the cafe. “I really couldn’t.”

And he contemplates that momentarily—what it would be like to _have_ Kaoru, to have and to hold him, to see him disappear piecemeal as he slipped further away. Like being put together and pulled apart, like reaching and holding back; like flying and falling all at once.

“Kojiro…”

“It’s stupid,” he interrupts, waving a hand. His throat burns. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s not stupid,” Hiroko says. “ _You’re_ not stupid.”

“Whatever you say.”

Hiroko falls silent. “He wouldn't _leave_ you—that wouldn’t happen,” she replies finally. “He would never do that to you.”

“You don’t know for sure.”

“Of course I don’t know,” she says steadily. Her fingers dance restlessly across the shiny wooden countertop. “I’ll never know. But for the record, I don’t think he would decide he doesn’t like you. You've been friends for—what, six years?”

Kojiro nods.

“So he’s had plenty of time to leave. And he hasn’t. That says a lot, doesn’t it?”

“Okay,” Kojiro mumbles. He doesn’t know why he’s even thinking about this, considering the chance that Kaoru even _likes_ him is almost zero, but Hiroko’s assurance soothes some of his nerves nevertheless. He silently thanks the gods that Hiroko is willing to put up with him, since his list of friends who don’t know Kaoru is short and no one else on said list is half as patient as her.

“My shift ends at six-thirty,” Hiroko says, apropos of nothing. She adjusts her apron. “Wanna grab a drink later?”

Kojiro shakes his head. “I have to get takeout for dinner. Thanks for the offer, though. Might take you up on it tomorrow.”

“Text me when you decide,” she calls as he stands up. “And you better buy something next time, the manager’s getting suspicious!”

“I will.”

━━━━━━

Kojiro comes home at six pm, when the sun is sinking behind the hills. He drops the plastic bag of takeout on the kitchen counter and walks to his bedroom.

Kaoru is exactly where he expected, kneeling on Kojiro's bed, legs resting on his stupid pizza-patterned blanket. The west-facing window is open, revealing a slice of light where the sunset is fully visible. Kaoru's arms are stretched out to settle on the window ledge, as if he's trying to dip his hands into the nebulous quiet of twilight. A knife-blade of ambrosia winding up into wildfire.

“Evening,” Kojiro says softly.

Kaoru looks at him. “Hi,” he replies. He scoots over on the bedspread, making space for Kojiro, who drops down onto the bed. “Did you get dinner?”

“Yeah. It wasn't that expensive, so don't worry about paying half. I had a coupon anyway.”

Kaoru blinks at him. “That's good.”

“It is good,” Kojiro answers. Then, softer: “It is.”

He isn't talking about coupons anymore.

Kaoru shuffles closer to the window. His saltwater hair flutters in the breeze and nightfall unfolds like a blanket. He's aglow in the evening light, the bow of his lips illuminated and his skin kissed by dusk.

Kojiro doesn't dare look away.

━━━━━━

They’re at the dinner table, bent over a styrofoam container of _okonomiyaki_ and a few yakitori skewers. Kojiro uses his chopsticks to cut the _okonomiyaki_ in half, plopping one piece onto his plate. Kaoru takes the other.

“What did your professor say?” Kaoru asks, voice cutting through the silence like a knife ripping through fabric.

Kojiro startles. “Huh?”

“Your professor,” Kaoru repeats, fiddling with his chopsticks. “The one who you had to talk to today?”

“Oh. _Oh_ ,” Kojiro answers when it finally clicks. “I just…had a question about a project we’re doing. He said I was doing fine.”

“That’s good,” Kaoru replies. There’s no snarky remark or dirty look. He doesn’t even kick Kojiro’s shin like he usually does, and Kojiro finds himself missing it, for some odd reason. 

They’re silent for the next ten minutes, just the sound of chewing and the crumpling of plastic echoing through the room. 

Kojiro rubs the sleep from his eyes with his fists and Kaoru hands him a tissue to wipe off the oil from his fingers. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Kojiro stares hard at his sock-clad feet to avoid making eye contact with Kaoru—it’s a pair of joke socks that Kaoru bought him for his seventeenth birthday, covered in bananas and monkeys and several sizes too big. He’s grown into them, finally, and they fit so well that he still wears them despite the obnoxiously loud pattern. Besides, Kaoru has a matching pair, so he can’t exactly insult him about them.

He blinks and notices that Kaoru is wearing the socks too. Then his eyes are drawn to the feather tattoo on Kaoru’s calf, striking in its entirety. He still isn’t wearing his customary _yukata_ , because apparently he wants Kojiro to lose his mind. Or something.

Kojiro pops another piece of _okonomiyaki_ into his mouth and chews. It tastes like sand. He swallows.

“Hey,” Kaoru says softly, his voice devoid of any sharp edges. “You can tell me if you’re having trouble with anything, you know? I don’t always give the best advice, but I’m here for you.”

Kojiro nods, offering Kaoru a wobbly smile. He’s almost taken aback—Kaoru is so rarely vulnerable that the moment feels especially raw, and he doesn’t say anything in case he accidentally shatters it.

“I mean it,” Kaoru adds emphatically. “You’re not…you aren’t alone, y’know? You don’t have to deal with everything yourself.”

“I’m not,” Kojiro responds. “Not alone, that is. I mean, I have you. And Hiroko,” he adds. “She’s been—helping me with some stuff.”

“Hiroko?” Kaoru echoes. “Hiroko from the cafe?”

“Yeah,” Kojiro confirms. “We’re…friends.” He opts not to mention that he’s only been dumping all his problems on her because she isn’t friends with Kaoru and he doesn’t have to worry about her spilling his secrets.

Something flickers across Kaoru’s face, but he remains impassive. “That’s nice,” he says. His voice sounds emptier, now, and Kojiro worries that he’s said the wrong thing, but it's too late; Kaoru is already getting up and pushing in his chair. “I’m glad. I think I’m going to turn in for the night.”

“Already?” Kojiro asks. He hates how desperate the plea is. “It’s only nine—”

“Sorry,” Kaoru cuts him off. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.” He heads to his bedroom, hair swooshing gently from side to side.

Kojiro sits at the table, frozen, until the sound of footsteps disappears.

━━━━━━

Kaoru avoids him for the next few days. It’s weirdly cathartic, not to be the one doing all the work. Now they’re both trying in equal measure to stay out of each other’s way, and Kojiro thinks this might be the end of it, that maybe keeping his distance from Kaoru for a week or two will stem the flow of emotions rushing through his veins.

But he finds himself feeling more hollow as the charade goes on.

He gets back from his classes and Kaoru isn’t home; he puts the dinner leftovers in the fridge. They’re gone the next evening, but there's nothing else to indicate that Kaoru has been there besides the containers in the dishwasher.

Kojiro ends up spending more time at the cafe now that the apartment is vacant at almost all times. Hiroko gives him free scones when he’s especially gloomy, but they’re no replacement for the cups of green tea with honey Kaoru makes at five in the morning and leaves in the microwave for Kojiro so they don’t get cold.

So after a week, he eases up on the evasion. He cooks lunch for Kaoru the night before and leaves the container on the table with a sticky note on top: ‘have a good day,’ or ‘see you tonight!’

In return, Kaoru sits down with him for dinner most nights; texts him when he’s going to be coming home late. Mugs of green tea start appearing in the microwave again.

It’s nice.

There’s one glaring problem, though—Kojiro still has a massive crush on Kaoru. It isn’t going away.

━━━━━━

Kaoru stops him as he’s heading out the door for class one day. “Hey,” he says, sounding hesitant. His fingers are wrapped around the handle of a mug of tea and he’s wearing those dumb bunny slippers Kojiro got him as a ‘we’re roommates now so I can’t judge your clothing choices’ gift. The bunny ears flop over the edge of the slippers. “Are you…free tonight?”

Kojiro raises his eyebrows. His fingers rest on the doorknob and he swings his keys in the other hand. “Yeah, why?”

“There’s a thing happening at ‘S.’ A championship, or something. It’s too late to enter, and we couldn’t have made time for the qualifying rounds anyway, but if you want to watch—”

“I’ll go,” Kojiro says, grinning slightly at the way Kaoru’s face falls into relief. “It sounds fun.”

“Great,” Kaoru replies. His shoulders relax. “We can take the train, just meet me at the station by eight o’clock.”

“Roger that, captain.” Kojiro salutes. Kaoru kicks him in the shin.

“Shut up.”

Kojiro beams at him brightly. Kaoru returns the look with a mixture of exasperation and fondness.

Kojiro thinks he could watch Kaoru smile all day long.

━━━━━━

They sit next to each other on the train. Kaoru looks good, hair in a loose ponytail and the customary bags under his eyes noticeably absent. Kojiro’s gaze darts from the train map to the man dozing away in the seat in front of them in an effort to stop himself from staring at Kaoru too long. It doesn’t work.

The doors hiss open and Kojiro opens his eyes. Kaoru looks at him, a question written on his face. Kojiro nods, and they step out. It’s been almost six months since the last time they visited ‘S,’ the same amount of time since they last came home properly.

Kojiro flicks a coin into a busker’s guitar case and they buy a few pieces of _taiyaki_ , wrapped in wax paper. They sit on a bench to finish eating. 

Okinawa lights up at night, nowhere near as bustling as Tokyo or Osaka, but electric all the same—neon signs flash, advertising everything from makeup to karaoke, and twilight paints a dusky tangerine lustre over the night sky, alight with bottled cricket chirps. Kojiro can barely make out the silhouette of a Ferris wheel in the distance.

There’s a dot of red bean paste on Kaoru’s chin; Kojiro wants to wipe it away, but he merely swallows and says, “You’ve got something on your chin.”

“Gone?” Kaoru asks, using the napkin to dab it. 

Kojiro nods. He glances at his phone. “We should go,” he notes. “The championship will be starting soon.” He crumples up his wrapper and throws it in the garbage can nearby, stretching as he stands up. Kaoru mirrors him.

They walk down the street westward, heading for the track. People surround them, business-people on their phones and teenagers giggling as they race across the road, high on the heady taste of freedom. 

There are couples everywhere he looks, hand-in-hand, sipping bubble tea or coffee. Kojiro itches to hold Kaoru’s hand, but he’s sure Kaoru would slap it away immediately. So he doesn’t.

They arrive at the skate track just in time. There’s a screen projecting bright lights and the names of eight competitors right at the forefront and smoke curls over their heads, the air thick with watered-down memories and eroding hunger. Kaoru tugs on his sleeve. 

They find a spot beneath the shade of a tree cluster and sit down. Kojiro pulls off his sweater and places it on the ground for Kaoru to sit almost out of reflex. “Here you go,” he offers, patting the sweater.

Kaoru’s mouth is a thin line. “Thanks.”

The competitors come out one-by-one, dressed in increasingly flashy outfits and varying in age from middle school to their early thirties. It’s funny, Kojiro thinks, the role that age plays at ‘S,’ always less about talent and more about pride. About the way older skaters look after younger ones, about the way they take care of them and give them advice as if out of some moral obligation, if not a contractual one. As if to protect them from the consequences of their own hubris.

Kojiro remembers being the same. Caught up in the rush of his own importance and coming sharply back to earth whenever he saw Adam or Kaoru pull off the same trick as him, ten times better. Spending his teenage years at ‘S’ was an experience, to say the least, a mixture of ego and embarrassment and interminable recklessness that he’s never quite been able to shake.

“Hey,” he mumbles, jabbing Kaoru in the rib. “Who do you think will win?”

Kaoru shrugs. His eyes are fixed on the screen. “Doesn’t really matter. Besides, we don’t know any of them,” he points out. 

Kojiro has to concede the truth; then he realizes that it’s kind of sad, how little time it took for him to forget the names and faces and skating styles of a group that he would have known better than his own name on his lips in high school.

The first race starts. Kaoru looks completely engrossed, leaning forward and glaring at the screen with laser-pointed eyes as if he could burn a hole through it. Kojiro sits back and just watches him.

The championships are less interesting when he has no stakes in them and he doesn’t know any of the competitors. But he laughs and claps and makes appreciative sounds at the right times, and his face twists into an expression of sympathy when the runner-up walks off in defeat.

And then the next one kicks off. This one is more exciting than the last. Kaoru slaps him on the shoulder in his excitement and Kojiro finds himself swept along for the ride. His eyes don’t leave the screen and when the skaters come into view, he cranes his neck to see.

The faces in the crowd have changed, but the energy is the same—Kojiro still gets the rush of adrenaline ripping through his bloodstream, and when the race is over he claps madly, his hands stinging and his cheeks sore from smiling too hard.

“We should go,” Kaoru mentions suddenly. “The last train is in fifteen minutes.”

Both of them are reluctant to leave, but they eventually peel off from the crowd and start walking down the alley, back to the main street. Kaoru’s hand shoots out to steady Kojiro when he nearly stumbles over the curb. 

“Careful,” he says sharply. 

“Right,” Kojiro stammers. “Sorry.”

They keep going, stepping into the night metropolis. The Ferris wheel is dotted with sparkling lights in the background, spinning forever in a vortex. The sky is overcast and cloudy, and the stifling humidity hangs in the air like a curtain of summer rain, but Kojiro shivers anyway.

“Are you cold?” Kaoru asks. He pulls off his jacket and offers it. Just by looking at it, Kojiro knows it’ll be a tight fit—Kaoru’s shoulders aren’t _slender_ by any measure, but they’re nowhere near as broad as Kojiro’s despite the minimal height difference between them.

He internally berates himself for even considering it. “Nope,” he answers, flapping a hand. “Keep it.” His voice cracks on the last syllable. He doesn’t dare meet Kaoru’s gaze, but in his peripheral vision, he can see Kaoru’s eyes narrow.

“What is _up_ with you?” Kaoru says pointedly. “You’ve been acting weird for so long.”

Kojiro stares at the pavement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m acting fine,” he insists, too stilted to sound genuine.

“You know exactly what I mean.” Kaoru’s voice is cold. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Kojiro. I’m not fucking _stupid_.”

Kojiro flinches. “I didn’t say you were.”

“You’re acting like it.”

Kojiro’s eyes burn. “What do you want to know?” he asks. A non-answer.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” Kaoru replies. He’s backlit in the neon glow of a karaoke sign, but his pink hair stands out anyway. “Why?”

Kojiro shrugs. His shoulders wobble and the toes of his banana socks peek out over his sandals. They’d seemed like a funny joke when he was picking what to wear. An interesting call-back to their high school days, perhaps. But now it’s not nearly as funny, just painful. “It’s not your problem,” he answers weakly. “Things have been…weird recently. It’s got nothing to do with you.” _Weird_ is an understatement. He doesn’t bother correcting it.

“Can you _stop_ saying that?” Kaoru responds. His voice teeters and falls off the edge.

“What do you…what?” Kojiro asks faintly. A quick glance at the billboard behind Kaoru tells him their train has left already and his shoulders tighten even more, fingers flinching to his phone to call a taxi.

“Stop saying nothing has to _do_ with me,” Kaoru says, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. His eyes are shiny, brimming with liquid. “I get that I’m not the most important part of your life anymore. I get that you have Hiroko and your other friends and shit now, I _get_ that you’ve moved on from me, from high school, but I…just let me pretend,” he whispers. “Let me pretend I still mean something. Let me pretend I still have something to do with you.”

Kojiro blinks. Of all the things he was expecting Kaoru to say, this wasn’t one of them. He feels completely out of place, flailing his arms desperately as he tries to understand. “I don’t follow.”

“I’m fucking insecure, alright?” Kaoru snaps. “I’m _scared_. Of you leaving. I can’t…” his hand drops. “Never mind. I’m going to head home. You can call a cab or something. Text me and I’ll e-transfer you the fare. It’s my…fault for bringing you here anyway.”

Kojiro’s voice regains some of its strength and he swallows. 

His heart feels like it’s cracking right down the middle, because Kaoru is red in the face and his mouth is quivering but he still looks like he’s been carved from pure moonlight. One hundred and sixty pounds of it, polished and silver-bright and glowing.

“Kaoru…” he says quietly. It comes out more bitter than he meant for it to, pained and sad and pleading. “You don’t have to. Seriously. I’m sorry if I…said anything wrong. I didn’t mean to.”

Kaoru laughs. “Don’t bother being sorry. I don’t—I’ll see you tomorrow. Or next week. Whenever, I guess. Leave me alone for a while, okay? That’s all. I won’t…ask you for anything. Anything you can give me, that is,” he mumbles under his breath. 

Kojiro’s stomach twists. His fist clenches, then loosens. “Okay,” he echoes, in disbelief that this is how it will end, Kaoru leaving him after all these years, Kaoru waving goodbye before Kojiro even has a chance to say hello properly. In the way he wishes he could.

Kaoru spins on his heel and walks off, ponytail swishing in the neon lights. The wind lifts the hem of his kimono and the edge of his feather tattoo is visible for a fraction of a second, awash in yellow light.

━━━━━━

Kojiro stares out the window of the taxi as the cab driver sings some old song, her fingers tapping against the car door. He can’t muster up the energy to make conversation. The exhaust pipe churns out smoke, a dragon coiling in puffs of pollution through the pitch-black sky. Glitching, stopping, stuttering with each breath.

“Have a good night,” the taxi driver calls when he gets out in front of their apartment complex. He looks up at the building. Almost all the lights are off. 

He goes through the motions alone, and he supposes this is what it must be like without Kaoru next to him, because even during their earlier disagreements Kaoru was at least there, omnipresent.

Then he realizes that maybe this was what he thought he wanted, once upon a time, when he was so desperate to get rid of his feelings that he would have sacrificed his friendship for it. And maybe it was some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, but he doesn’t feel satisfied or fulfilled in the slightest. Just agonized. And awfully empty.

He doesn’t text Kaoru for the cab fare. He eats dinner alone, one light on in the kitchen, and prepares lunch for Kaoru tomorrow even though he probably won’t be coming back so soon. He showers, brushes his teeth, and crawls under the covers like he’s five years old again and there’s a monster under his bed he can ward off just by pulling the blankets higher.

When he wakes, his pillow is damp with tears.

━━━━━━

For the next two weeks, he tries to ignore the heavy silence in the apartment. He puts on ambient music so he isn’t alone with his thoughts. It works, for the most part, until the people who live next to them start complaining about it being too loud. Then he comes home to complete quiet. 

For the next two weeks, he brushes off his neighbours’ stares, the question of ‘where’s Kaoru?’ clear in their expressions. When someone asks, he says vaguely, “He’s working.” And that’s that.

For the next two weeks, he spends every evening at the cafe, Hiroko using her employee discount to get him scones and drinks at a lower price. He never tells her the whole story, but she understands anyway and doesn’t say a word.

For the next two weeks, he and Hiroko go to the bar a total of five times. He has to drag himself to his classes with a massive hangover each time, but he keeps doing it. He puts on his favourite leather jacket, the one Kaoru bought for him, and ruffles his hair and orders shot after shot until he can barely stand up.

He wakes up in a stranger’s bed three times out of five, sporting marks and hickeys all over his neck. But he can’t say it’s unexpected at this point, so he dresses and closes the door before they notice.

And for the next two weeks, Kojiro doesn’t see Kaoru. He doesn’t talk about Kaoru, he doesn’t ask anyone for information on him, he doesn't scroll through their text messages, even though he can’t seem to think about anything else.

He stares at the ‘call’ button until he goes cross-eyed.

He helps set Hiroko up on a blind date with the girl from the library and passes one of his culinary exams with top scores and mops the tiny, cramped apartment four times, and never once does he see Sakurayashiki Kaoru in the flesh.

━━━━━━

When he finally does see Kaoru, it’s one in the morning and he’s sleepily reading over his essay at the kitchen counter before he clicks the submit button, a half-eaten apple in his hand. He hears the key turn quietly in the lock and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end, because no one else has the key to this apartment, except—

Kaoru looks like he regrets coming back already. The flicker of hope in Kojiro’s chest snuffs out at the sight of the utter exhaustion on Kaoru’s face, exhaustion and regret. He leans away from Kojiro, as if he’s scared of him, and Kojiro’s gut sinks.

“Hi,” he says finally, barely loud enough to be a whisper. He gets off the chair and stands up to face Kaoru. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks,” Kaoru mumbles.

It’s a funny picture they make, thinks Kojiro, their figures warped by the soft contours of the flickering lamplight. Kaoru with his straggly hair that looks like it hasn’t been washed in days and massive shadows under his eyes, facing off against Kojiro, dressed in his dumb rubber-ducky-patterned pyjamas that clash horribly with his hair.

“Do you…feel better?” he asks, hesitating.

Kaoru nods. “A lot better.” He doesn’t exactly _look_ better, but Kojiro doesn’t mention it.

“Wanna talk about it?” Kojiro blurts out. Kaoru blanches. “I mean—not if you don’t want to, but eventually. I think we should.”

Kaoru nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Kojiro repeats, uncertain if he’s heard right.

“Yes,” Kaoru answers. “We should talk about it. Now.”

“Should I…do you want to start?” Kojiro’s coffee-addled brain isn’t doing much to help string together coherent sentences, but he tries anyway, gathering up fistfuls of anemic courage and holding them tight in the palms of his hands. The residual dust on his heart falls to the floor and claws deep in the cracks of the kitchen tile.

Kaoru inclines his head. “I’m fine with that.”

A long moment of silence passes. Kojiro opens his mouth to ask a question, but Kaoru cuts him off. 

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly. “I was an idiot. I was tired and I took it out on you. I apologize for that.” It sounds scripted yet clunky, like the words are all coming out but in the wrong way, the wrong order. 

“I…accept your apology,” Kojiro replies. “It’s my fault for acting funny in the first place. I’m sorry I didn’t explain it to you.” He steels himself to confess, to say at least part of it if not all. There’s no short way to say ‘I want to wake up next to you for the rest of my life, or at least for as long as you’ll have me,’ without it being completely out of the blue.

Kaoru interrupts him. “Don’t apologize. It’ll just make me feel worse,” he snorts. The sound is tinged with sourness. “Can I—say the rest now?”

“Go ahead.”

“I said a lot of shit I didn’t mean,” Kaoru begins. “I regret it. But I was telling the truth, mostly. I think you know what I’m getting at.”

Kojiro blinks twice. He feels even more foolish now. “I don’t, actually.”

Kaoru sighs, the corners of his lips tugging down. “I’m scared of getting left behind,” he says candidly, like he’s reading the morning weather report. “You kept mentioning Hiroko and your friends at culinary school and all the opportunities waiting for you afterwards, and I…freaked out a little. For a long time, I thought it was because you were my only real friend left, and of course I wouldn’t want to be alone, but then I realized it was…more than that.”

“‘Scuse me?”

“I fucking like you, asshat,” Kaoru replies, tugging a hand through his hair. He sighs. “For some reason.”

Kojiro’s stomach flips, like he’s lost his footing on a trampoline and been sent soaring through the air. “How long?”

Kaoru’s mouth twists. “Four years.”

“Four years? But that’s…”

“Before we moved in together, I know,” Kaoru says. “I thought it would go away. Or I would get better at hiding it.” He laughs, raw and acidic. “Which clearly didn’t happen.” He looks at Kojiro, half-hopeful and wholly resigned. “I wanted to tell you. Even though you don’t…like me back. It doesn’t have to be awkward,” he says. It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “I promise, I’ll—”

“Shut up,” Kojiro interrupts immediately. He realizes that probably wasn’t the best way to phrase it when the corners of Kaoru's mouth tug down. “I mean, don’t…shut up,” he supplies, fumbling. “I’m really fucking bad at this, aren’t I?” he mumbles. He rubs a hand over his face. “Um. Did you know I’ve been avoiding you for months because I have no idea how to handle the fact that I think you’re really hot?”

Probably not a great introduction either, but he’s nowhere near articulate enough at the moment to care.

“What?”

“Yeah. Hiroko was tired of me coming up with excuses not to ask you out. And here we are.”

Kaoru’s throat bobs and he closes his eyes. “Those excuses were…?”

Kojiro rubs the back of his neck with his hand. “That it would ruin everything, that wouldn’t be friends. That I’d get kicked out of the apartment.” He swallows. “That you’d say yes.”

Kaoru frowns. Kojiro cuts him off.

“I was scared that you’d say yes and leave me once you found out how shitty of a boyfriend I was,” he clarifies.

“I _know_ you’d be a shitty boyfriend,” Kaoru replies, rolling his eyes. “But at least you'd be _my_ shitty boyfriend.”

Kojiro wants to cry. He stands up taller, as tall as he can in his ducky pyjamas without feeling foolish, and meets Kaoru’s gaze. “Are you asking me out?”

“What do you think?”

Kojiro beams and crosses the apartment in three strides, meeting Kaoru halfway and wrapping his arms around Kaoru’s waist. Kaoru kisses him, harsh and bruising, but he softens the kiss after a few seconds. Kojiro licks into his mouth; he tastes like day-old coffee.

He can't quite believe he's _here_ , that they're here, that it's taken so long and maybe he doesn't feel whole, maybe he doesn't know all the secrets of the universe, maybe he's still the same stupid teenager he used to be.

But maybe that doesn't matter after all. His legs knock against Kaoru's and his palms are sticky with sweat but Kaoru intertwines their fingers anyway. And that means everything.

Kaoru smiles against his lips and pulls him onto the couch, pinning him down and kissing him within an inch of his life. His hair cascades like a waterfall over Kojiro’s shoulder and Kojiro surges up to press his mouth to Kaoru’s neck, planting messy kisses down the length of his collarbone.

They break apart, panting, and Kojiro rolls over on the cramped, cheap couch to look Kaoru in the eye, to look at him in all his sharp beauty, and fall in love with him again.

It’s late at night, an hour when Okinawa runs on alcohol and caffeine and neon lights. The dog downstairs is barking and their breaths are uneven and Kojiro’s essay is most definitely overdue, but Kaoru presses their foreheads together, whispers a soft ‘I love you’ into his ear, and he can’t quite bring himself to care. 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos, bookmarks, & comments are all greatly appreciated <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://dewbells.tumblr.com/)


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